I want you.
And wanting is heavy,
Breaking in waves and never drifting apart.
I want you inside me;
*** is the only way I know how to form connections.
Cheap and sacred,
Meaningless and potent.
I want you to know me.
See my sadness and loss and understand they’re not all of me better than I do.
I want you to fill me;
Glaring holes and gaping chasms.
Pour light into me and soothe absences I should know how to heal myself.
Fix my rot,
Want me though I’m broken and lacking.
See me, unfinished and trying and with eyes that should help but follow you,
And pick me though I am the devourer of worlds, already devoured more than once myself.
I want you, and the want is so heavy.
Though I don’t break apart beneath it, or anything else.
All I do is stand here, wanting,
And my wanting wants you.

Hold me.

Make me feel safe

And small

And hideable

Put your arms around me

So that the world can’t get past

Give me your care

And absolution for my needing it

I could burst with my feelings
for you. Like a balloon.
Filled with hot air, babe. Tssssssssshhhhh.

Unrealistically enamoured with you.
As in, we are an unrealistic pairing.
As in, if you ever /were/ to reciprocate my affection, we would both have to pray that my stupid crush-obsession turned into something real.
As in, before you discovered how emotionally stunted and unhealthy I am.
As in, maybe I can’t feel real things for other people, and maybe trying to touch you would only reveal you to be smoke.
Unrealistic, unrealistic, unrealistic, unrealistic, unrealistic.
As in, I think you’re wildly uninterested in me;
I think I’m the opposite of your type;
I think I confuse any type of fondness for a faint glimmer of hope;
I think I should ******* give up;
But I have an addict’s brain and it keeps chasing the idea of us round and around and around, wearing grooves into the earth.
As if by doing so I can tire myself out of the idea.
As if by doing so the cracks will bleed into reality.
I think I should ******* give up.

Ghost,
Tell no secrets of mine
And I won’t pull you into the corporeal.
Forget the taste of life I left on your lips,
The wine of my blood you drank as an offering,
The honey of my skin.
Speak not of what was given too freely,
Memories that should have suffered our same demise.
Ghost,
Speak not my name.
If not for me, then for fear that I know your name too
And how to use it against you.

Thunk, clack,
There is the sound of brick laid on brick,
Their harsh edges meeting as you build a wall.
P-R-O-T-E-C-T Y-O-U-R-S-E-L-F,
The Gameshow.
The audience knows when the lights flash to repeat the words.
Their enthusiasm is a bloodlust,
And you are just waiting for the blood mist,
A knife in your ribs,
Pain,
Betrayal.
So— THUNK, CLACK—
You build a wall.

Behind six feet of glass,
You watch the sharks swim,
And know that you would be left in ribbons by them.
But the water is impossible blue,
And you’ve forgotten wetness.
Your fingers tap—
Tap—
On the glass, considering.
For a moment,
You see cracks spiderwebbing.
For a moment,
You imagine the glass breaking, water rushing out.
You can see the sharks lying on the floor,
Gills fluttering futilely, bodies struggling under the weight of themselves,
While your clothes lie heavy against your slick skin,
Soaked.
But you think of their eyes, unblinking, uncomprehending,
Pained.
So you stay behind six feet of glass,
Forgetting what pain feels like,
Along with everything else.